“You’re not too drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”
Best known as the straight man in the Martin and Lewis comedy team and a core member of Sinatra’s Rat Pack. A former boxer, steel-mill worker, and croupier, Dean Martin came up as a nightclub singer on the East Coast before teaming with comedian Jerry Lewis in 1946. Their act, with Martin as a straight man whose performances are continually undermined by Lewis, became one of the biggest draws in the country, lasting ten years and earning both men millions. As a solo performer, he won acclaim for his roles in The Young Lions (1958), Some Came Running (1958), and Rio Bravo (1959), the last of which was a wonderful turn as the archetypal drunken cowboy. As a member of the Rat Pack, along with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr., he established himself as one of the giants of the Las Vegas casino circuit. He brought his wisecracking drunk persona into millions of homes on a weekly basis with two long-running NBC series, The Dean Martin Show (1965–1974) and The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast (1974–1984). To the end, Martin remained one of the most bankable and beloved stars in show business.
WITH DEAN MARTIN, YOU could never tell. His family and friends held firm that the actor’s public persona—the jovial, unapologetic tippler—was exactly that, a persona. The truth was, they said, that while he liked a drink, it wasn’t a way of life. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane later observed the same thing: “Martin’s trick was to appear drunk even when he was not, and to look even when he was drunk as if he were only pretending to be drunk and were fully in control of the situation—as, of course, he was, even though drunk.” Sounds like maybe Lane was drunk. The most Martin would admit to was four or five cocktails in a given evening, plus wine. You be the judge.
Still, if the quantity of Martin’s consumption was something of a mystery, the quality of his drinking buddies was not. They were the Rat Pack, probably the most storied collection of debauchers in the history of Hollywood, and Vegas, too—and that’s no small feat. With Sinatra or Davis or Bishop or Lawford at his side, Martin suddenly became the town drunk.
One friend of the Rat Pack who seems to have made a hobby out of testing various pals’ capacity for booze was the indomitable Jackie Gleason. In his autobiography, Jerry Lewis, who considered Gleason “the greatest party animal alive,” describes a contest that took place in 1950 at Manhattan’s legendary Toots Shor’s restaurant. It seems that Gleason had been teasing Martin endlessly about his “wussy drinking,” and on this night Martin had had enough. The two stars decided to go drink for drink, last man standing wins. Immediately, a crowd gathered around. Gleason quickly ordered two Boilermakers. After which, Martin ordered two Pink Ladies—it was meant as a joke, but they drank them. With round one over, the actors decided to raise the stakes to a thousand dollars, which in 1950 was roughly equivalent to ten thousand dollars. The crowd grew even bigger, with gamblers and drunks eager to watch this historic battle unfold. But within minutes, it was over. Who had won?
Nobody. They’d each downed exactly two drinks when retired Major League shortstop Leo Durocher walked into the restaurant with the most beautiful woman on earth. Lewis describes her as having “breasts far out enough to ring her own doorbell.” Immediately, the contest was forgotten.
At night’s end, however, it would be Lewis (not Martin or Gleason) who wound up taking the woman back to his hotel suite. At 4:15 a.m., there was a knock on his door, followed by this exchange:
Martin: “I want sharesies!”
Lewis: “We share sandwiches, makeup, towels, tux ties, but we never share ladies.”
Martin (burp): “Did you ever hear of an amendment?”
Hmm, sounds pretty damn drunk.